Shadow of the Depth

Shadow of the Depth is an action-adventure game infused with Roguelike elements. It offers a selection of five distinctive characters, each featuring unique skills and ultimate abilities. As you explore subterranean labyrinths, you can execute various combo sequences to overwhelm your opponents and earn rewards to develop your character. However, be aware that every foray into the labyrinth presents a completely different environment and set of enemies; you must remain vigilant and adaptable to overcome the various foes and bosses you encounter. The game is constantly evolving, with new story chapters, gameplay features, and characters regularly being added—so stay tuned!

Gameplay of Shadow of the Depth:

Shadow of the Depth is a roguelike set action game that features exploring the hidden dungeons and eliminating the monsters in the dark. It is a single-player game where you begin with Arthur, the default character. The dungeons have chapters.

Each chapter has three normal stages, and the last one is the Boss stage, where you engage in the boss battles. The game has a chapter-based progression system with immersive dark visuals and controls. The main gameplay involves moving forward in the dungeon and discovering the unlocked areas on the map.

As you move ahead, monsters will start attacking you as they see you. You need to kill all the monsters in that stage before your HP dies out. In the next stage, your life will be renewed as full. In between the combat, you’ll pick up and use items that include HP, Skill Book, and Weapons or even sell them.

There are mainly two game modes: Classic and Intense. The classic mode is the default game mode, where you go through full levels. At the same time, the intense mode is where you skip the first stage of each chapter but receive drops of a similar number to the Classic mode. Each mode will have six difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Advanced, Hard, Expert, and Nightmare.

The Easy and Normal levels have been available to play since the beginning. The other ones unlock after completing the previous difficulty level. For combat, you’ll have a joystick on the left for movement. On the right-hand side, you’ll have buttons to perform tasks that include Evade, Attack, Combo, Special Skill, Ultimate Skill, Passive Skill, and more.

The Evade button is to dodge attacks from enemies. The Attack button unleashes the normal attack of your character. There are separate controls for some characters to perform combo attacks as well. The skill buttons appear as you pick them up during your fight in the dungeon. 

Features of Shadow of the Depth:

Combat Combat Combat: Shadow of the Depth uses a unique combat system where timing your attacks and dodges is essential.

Build Different: Shadow of the Depth allows you to build your character offensively and defensively with a staggering 140 unique passives and runes to choose from.

Boss Battles: Shadow of the Depth has its fair share of difficult bosses. You’ll need strategy and quick reflexes to say the least in order to defeat each boss.

Different Types of Warriors: Shadow of the Depth has different playable warriors. These warriors each lend a different way to play and master the depths.

Combat to Relieve Stress: Essentially, the combat in Shadow of the Depth is designed to provide a satisfying experience that helps relieve stress. See for yourself.

Dungeons That Change: Navigating through Shadow of the Depth is never the same due to the different procedurally generated dungeons across the three chapters. Dungeons are never the same.

Useful Tips of Shadow of the Depth:

The most important aspect of your build will come in the form of the skill books (power ups) that you select. Firstly, dragon’s heart (increases health) and any power ups that allow you to increase your max health points (HP) are always helpful. Having more HP allows more room for errors. In addition to this reliable ways to gain a shield can go a long way. Being able to gain and re-gain a shield can mitigate a lot of damage and keep you at full health. In addition, items that reduce damage like melee, mob or boss damage help a lot in your overall ability to survive.

On the attack side the biggest difference I found was prioritizing my gold coins on skill books (and dragon’s hearts) vs weapons. For skill books specifically, the most effective type of power ups are those with on attack effects that affect damage. Anything that creates another source of damage when you attack can be powerful. By grabbing a few of these and leveling them up you’ll be able to stack up a lot of damage. For example, you can gain power ups that allow you to shoot projectiles, deal elemental damage on hit and also create damage over time effects (like a cold aura or a fire trail when you walk). In addition, anything that increases attack power can also be very potent. For instance, dragon knight will increase both your attack power and HP. This adds up to a very significant amount throughout the game especially if you grab it early. All of these sources of damage can stack and this is how you can melt mobs and bosses. In addition, to on attack effects, anything that increases damage to bosses (or single targets) and mobs specifically is usually a good choice. For support skills I prefer something with crowd control like a stun. Executing your combo and then using a stun can be enough to wipe out a mob before it has a chance to even touch you.

For a secondary weapon something with high burst damage and/or mobility is really helpful. This can then become part of your combo and/or give you another option to avoid damage. Most weapons from other classes are viable. I did however find that the channel abilities (magic orb) to be less useful per MP used. In addition, some pet summons (that allow multiple summons like 6 hawks) were amazing while others were very lackluster in survivability and damage.

Lastly, for ultimates, I prefer a damaging ultimate vs a survivability one. Each type can have its uses. The damaging ones can also help with surviving as the faster you can kill a dangerous mob the less chance it has to attack you. A survivability ultimate can be helpful when you are new to the game and have issues dodging or blocking/parrying damage.

First Boss: Learn their move and attack set. This will allow you to understand when you can attack them and avoid damage. It’s not too complicated but you should be able to block or dodge most of the attacks.

Second Boss: This encounter is all about understanding each phase. There will be phases when the boss can not be damaged. During these phases, you need to avoid the obstacles that can drop on you. When mobs are added, try to deal damage both to the boss and the mobs. Otherwise, you will ended up killing the mobs but not damaging the boss. Lastly, the trickiest aspect is avoiding the boss’s ability to pull you in. If you have enough HP, this shouldn’t be an issue at all.

Third Boss: This encounter is fairly straight forward. Once again you should be able to dodge and block most of its attacks. Once it’s HP reaches a low level it will spawn a copy of itself. Nothing too tricky here. If you are having issues with this boss, most likely you need more HP or damage mitigation and/or higher DPS. Once your DPS is at a certain level, the fight isn’t too tough.

Player Comments of Shadow of the Depth:

I've only played a little bit so far (2 hours or so), but I had a great time. I think for the price, this is worth it.

Let's talk about the basics. You can dodge, and it IS an i-frame. The longer you hold dodge, the further you go, but the longer the cooldown on the dodge will be. Cool downs on dodging are a tricky thing to get right, but it is done very well here. You can't just spam it.

If you walk in a single direction, your character goes into a sprint. The game is a top down perspective, and you often outrun the screen, but you can expand your view by zooming out. I found a happy medium that lets me enjoy the detail in the dark, beautiful artwork while also helping me not run face first into enemies.

Every character in the game has their own set of combos, but the basics are universal, so I will mention them here and discuss the characters I have tried after this point. So, using mouse and keyboard here, right click is my basic attack. Before I continue, combos are locked behind meta progression, but it is relatively quick to get the necessary currency to unlock them. Wait. Let me talk about this really quickly... ;D So meta progression currency is divided between crystals, which you acquire during the run, and they don't go away when you die. These are used to upgrade weapons (at a terminal you can unlock via meta progression), and buy and sell runes (also unlocked with meta progression).

The real meta, then, I suppose is the purple currency which you get for leveling up. Your level is tied to your account, not your character, so after each run, no matter how far you make it, the progress bar will go up. Similarly, your level is also how you unlock characters. ANYWAYS. Combat and combos.

So my right click (from this point referred to as RC) is my basic attack. After unlocking the combos, I can do four RCs to do a... well.. combo. But! I can also do RC>slight pause>RC. Now my second attack is completely different. RC>RC>slight pause>RC, and again, a completely different combo. I have played two characters so far, and though these inputs are the same, the results are drastically different. There are passives found during runs that further enhance and encourage doing these combos. The combos themselves are not difficult to execute, as you can see, it's just simple pauses before attacking. There is also a ruin that you can equip (once you find it in a run, ruins don't go away even if you die) that shows you a flash, indicating the proper timing for the next attack after the delay. You can also hold the attack button down for a charge attack, which again is different depending on the character you use. Your E key, for those on keyboard, is your mana draining special ability, and that one is dependent on the weapon you find in the run, as they each have their own. 

Final Verdict:

As players dive deeper into the game, they will uncover new abilities and enhancements that further empower their characters. The thrill of discovering a new passive that perfectly complements one's combat strategy adds a layer of depth to the gameplay loop, encouraging exploration and experimentation within the ever-changing environments of the dungeon.